DA 2019 Parliamentary Review: Only one party makes Parliament work for the people
5 December 2019
It gives me great pleasure to present to you a review of the Democratic Alliance’s performance in Parliament in 2019 – a year in which the DA once again punched above its weight in carrying out its constitutional duty to hold the Executive to account.
The role of Parliament is twofold: It must pass legislation and it must hold the executive to account by conducting effective oversight. Much of this oversight function is achieved through parliamentary questions, and when you look at the numbers it is clear that only one party takes this crucial responsibility seriously. Of all the questions submitted in the National Assembly since the start of the 6th Parliament, 70% came from the DA. That’s over a thousand of the 1482 questions asked to members of the Executive.
The numbers also reveal that many departments of this ANC government don’t respect the oversight role of Parliament as they continue to leave parliamentary questions unanswered. The worst offenders here are the Departments of Health, Mineral Resources & Energy, Employment & Labour, Public Enterprises and Social Development – all having answered less than 50% of the questions put to them.
Every single one of these questions relates to an issue that profoundly affects South Africans – from crime and policing to outstanding Eskom debt, and from the cost of NHI pilots to the eye-watering amounts of money spent on maintaining the lifestyles of current and former presidents and their families.